Stop – Look – Listen Recognising the Sentience of Farm Animals
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Stop – Look – Listen RECOGNISING THE SENTIENCE OF FARM ANIMALS A report by Compassion in World 3 Farming Trust 2006 © Colin Seddon Compassion in World Farming Trust is a charity working internationally to advance the welfare of farm animals. We produce a range of science-based educational resources covering farm animal welfare and associated environmental, social and ethical issues. The trustees are grateful to several grant-making Charitable Trusts and members of the public who have made this work possible. In 005, Compassion in World Farming Trust held a conference in London entitled From Darwin to Dawkins: the Science and Implications of Animal Sentience, on the growing scientific and ethical understanding of animals and its implications for human activities that use animals. The conference was attended by 600 people from 50 countries. The conference papers are available in two different publications: the book Animals, Ethics and Trade: the Challenge of Animal Sentience, edited by J. Turner and J. D'Silva, Earthscan, 006 and in a special issue of the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, edited by John Webster, Elsevier, 006. CIWF Trust also hosts a website dedicated to research news and discussion about animal sentience: www.animalsentience.com. Further information and a complete list of our available materials and downloadable versions are available at www.ciwf.org. Stop – Look – Listen RECOGNISING THE SENTIENCE OF FARM ANIMALS A report by Compassion in World Farming Trust Report compiled and written by Dr Jacky Turner for Compassion in World Farming Trust additional research by Dr Deborah Shah-Smith Updated version 2006 (First published 003) © Compassion in World Farming Trust, 006 ISBN 90056 39 3 Compassion in World Farming Trust, Charles House, 5a Charles Street, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU3 3EH, UK Tel: +44 (0)730 68070 Fax: +44 (0)730 6079 Email: [email protected] Website: www.ciwf.org Registered charity number 095050, a company limited by guarantee, registered number 4590804 3 Preface By Joyce D’Silva, Ambassador, Compassion in World Farming Trust Everyone who cares about the protection of animals rejoiced when a Protocol was formally added to the European Treaty in 997 recognising animals as sentient beings. This achievement was largely due to nine years of hard work by animal protection organisations such as Compassion in World Farming. But fine sentiments, even enshrined in law, do not automatically change the reality on the ground. Even though ‘human rights’ are enshrined in national or international law they are violated on a daily basis in many countries. With the sentience of animals there is a further problem. What do we mean by this term? Does it mean simply that animals can feel pain? It does mean that, but in our view it means much more. It means that, as Charles Darwin so bravely put it, humans and the ‘higher animals’ have ‘the same senses, intuitions and sensations, similar passions, affections and emotions… the same faculties of imitation, choice, imagination, the association of ideas and reason though in very different degrees’ (C Darwin – The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 87). Animal science has for so long been rooted in behaviourist theory that few modern theorists have dared to conclude that because an animal appears to be happy, frightened, melancholy or angry that it actually is experiencing those mind/body states. The time has surely come to broaden our definitions of animal sentience and welfare and embrace gut feelings and common sense. Find me a 7-year-old child who, upon seeing a bird in a tiny cage, does not immediately want to set it free. We can learn much from the uncluttered minds and open sensitivities of the young. Our problem with realising the full implications of animal sentience may not be the difficulty of ‘liberating’ animals, but of liberating ourselves from centuries of conditioned thinking. Only then can we see animals for who they are and award them the respect and compassion they deserve. In our report you will find numerous examples taken from the scientific literature showing how farm animals feel and think, and how current farming practices sadly still cause them suffering. My hope is that this report will help to move forward the process of full appreciation of the implications of farm animal sentience. The animals themselves have waited too long. 4 Contents 1. Introduction: What is animal sentience? 6 1. Historical attitudes to animal sentience 6 1. Modern attitudes to animal sentience 7 1.3 Evidence for the mental abilities of animals 0 1.4 Why animal sentience matters 2. Evidence about farm animals’ sentience 11 2. Sensations and emotions 2.. Pain 2.. Fear and anxiety 4 2..3 Frustration 7 2..4 Pleasure and play 8 2. The social behaviour of farm animals 9 2.. Social groups 9 2.. Family bonds 2..3 Communication 3 2.3 Farm animals’ natural behaviour and preferences 4 2.4 Understanding, problem-solving and learning 5 3. How we respect animal sentience in farming 27 3. Pain and discomfort caused by farming practices 8 3.. Mutilations 8 3.. Close confinement and indoor housing 9 3..3 Intensive breeding 3 3..4 Handling, transport and slaughter 33 3..5 Force feeding and feed restriction 34 3. Fear and anxiety caused by farming practices 34 3.. Fear of humans and handling 34 3.. Separation and weaning 35 3.3 Disruption of social and family behaviour 36 3.4 Prevention of natural activities 38 4. Conclusions and Recommendations 40 4. The sentience of farm animals 40 4. Recognising farm animal sentience in theory and in practice 4 Fig 1 Pain perception 3 Fig 2 A pig stressed by handling 5 Fig 3 The stress response 6 Boxes: Box : Stress 6 Box : Stereotypies 8 Box 3: The 5 Freedoms 6 Box 4: Space allowed for farm animals 7 Box 5: Veal crates 30 Box 6: Cages for laying hens 3 Box 7: Sow stalls (gestation crates) 3 Box 8: Meat chickens (broilers) 3 Box 9: The family pen for pigs 38 Box 0: Progress in animal welfare 39 Box : Free range and organic farming 40 References 43 5 Introduction: What is animal sentience? ‘A sentient animal is one for whom feelings matter’ 1 In 1997 the concept of animal sentience was written into the basic law of the European Union. The legally-binding protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam recognises that animals are ‘sentient beings’, and requires the EU and its members to ‘pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals’. What this is saying is that animal welfare has to be taken into account because the animals are sentient, capable of feeling pain and of suffering. In other words it matters to them how they are treated. What exactly do we mean by animal sentience? The dictionary defines ‘sentience’ as the power of sense perception or sensation, or consciousness. In this report the words ‘sentience’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘awareness’ will be taken as meaning very much the same. If an animal is ‘sentient’, it is capable of being aware of its surroundings, of sensations in its own body, including pain, hunger, heat or cold and of emotions related to its sensations. It is aware of what is happening to it and its relations with other animals, including humans. Sentience does not necessarily mean that animals have complex abilities to understand, to learn, to solve problems or to be ‘intelligent’ (what we might call intellectual abilities), although they may have these too. But intellectual abilities must give us a strong indication that the animal is consciously aware and has subjective experiences. One strong indicator of animals’ sentience is their ability to distinguish and choose between different objects, animals and situations, which shows that they understand what is going on in their environment. Another strong indicator of sentience is animals’ ability to learn from experience, to use their experience to cope with the world more effectively (from their point of view) and to respond flexibly to new situations that confront them. 1.1 Historical attitudes to animal sentience Scientists and philosophers in the past have both supported and rejected the idea that animals are sentient Knowledge and beliefs about animal consciousness differ between human societies and cultures and have also differed historically. In the Judaeo- Christian tradition, humans alone are seen as being made in the image of God and animals were put on earth for human use. In other religious and philosophical traditions, however, the distinction between human and ‘animal’ is less marked. Following the Western tradition, the French philosopher and scientist, René Descartes (596-650), considered the father of modern philosophy, believed that only humans have reason and that animals lack any kind of mental activity or subjective experience. According to Descartes, ‘there is no prejudice to which we are all more accustomed from our earliest years than the belief that dumb animals think.’ 3 6 Descartes believed that animals are automata and according to him they: ‘act naturally and mechanically, like a clock which tells the time better than our judgement does. Doubtless when the swallows come in spring, they operate like clocks. The actions of honeybees are of the same nature and the discipline of cranes in flight, and of apes in fighting… All [animal motions] originate from the corporeal and mechanical principle’,4 as opposed to being associated with mental activity. The European intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment stressed human capacity to advance knowledge and social conditions. This tradition did not see it as irrational to assume that animals have awareness and some mental capacities. The Scottish philosopher of the Enlightenment, David Hume (7-776) considered, ‘animals undoubtedly feel, think, love, hate, will and even reason, though in a more imperfect manner than men.’ 5 Hume considered that animals learn from experience in a similar way to humans: ‘Animals, as well as men, learn many things from experience, and infer, that the same events will always follow from the same causes… [and acquire] a knowledge of the nature of fire, water, earth, stones, heights, depths, etc.